Ever since it was founded, the CAYC (Centro de Arte y Comunicación), helmed by the cultural promoter, artist, and businessman Jorge Glusberg, was intended as an interdisciplinary space where an experimental art movement could flourish. The establishment of collaborative networks connecting local and international artists and critics played an important role in this process. As part of the interdisciplinary approach it had always encouraged, the CAYC promoted experimental practices, appropriating a variety of examples of Argentine art from the 1960s.
The productions that were part of the CAYC’s theater program shared a common aesthetic approach based on the relationship between actors and the audience; in this case the audience chose the script. They also used the minimalist stage settings inspired by the dramatic vision of Jerzy Grotowski (1933–1999) and his “poor theater.” Teatro Pobre, which relied on actors using their bodies and voices as they performed on a bare stage, was a direct reference to performance art, which was one of the experimental trends that Glusberg promoted in the local scene. The Ciclo de Investigaciones Teatrales 73-74 was organized at the CAYC in 1973 and 1974 (GT-297; doc. no. 1478830, GT-301; doc. no. 1478985, GT 302; doc. no. 1478986, GT-308; doc. no. 1478837, GT-317; doc. no. 1478987, GT-321; doc. no. 1478841, GT-326; doc. no. 1478843, GT-410; doc. no. 1478893, GT-418; doc. no. 1478895). Several groups took part in this event. The general idea was to approach theater as a political practice that could affect societal change.
Grotowski’s ideas had a powerful influence on the Grupo de los Trece, a group of visual artists who were affiliated with the CAYC. The group’s original members (Jacques Bedel, Luis [Fernando] Benedit, Gregorio Dujovny, Carlos Ginzburg, Víctor Grippo, Jorge González Mir, Vicente Marotta, Luis Pazos, Alberto Pellegrini, Alfredo Portillos, Juan Carlos Romero, Julio Teich, and Glusberg) met with the Polish theater director when he was in Buenos Aires in November 1971 (GT-94; doc. no. 1478761).
As mentioned in this newsletter, the play announced therein took its name from the “Uncertainty Principle” expressed in 1927 by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg, who was working in the field of quantum mechanics. This concept describes the impossibility of precision in the moderation of certain variables among the particles existing in the universe. In this play, that principle is applied to human behavior in catastrophic circumstances that create uncertainty. It is an important subject given the violence that gripped Argentina when the government was overthrown by a coup d’état on March 24, 1976.
The writer and director of the play, Malena Marechal (1942-2019), was an actress and a playwright, and was the daughter of the well-known Argentine writer Leopoldo Marechal (1900-1970).
